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Lenny Dykstra was a hero to Mets fans after this leadoff homer in Game 3 of the dramatic 1986 World Series. Photo: AP

Convicted of fraud, Dykstra is serving more than three years in prison. He was forced to pawn his World Series ring and the $18 million mansion he bought from Wayne Gretzky to try to pay back angry employees and investors. (
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Nailed!

The Improbable Rise and Spectacular Fall of Lenny Dykstra

by Christopher Frankie

Running Press

In 1993, toward the end of his baseball career, former New York Met Lenny Dykstra told Sports Illustrated that, “before I take a dirt nap, I’m going to build myself a financial empire.”

According to this explosive new book by financial journalist and former Dykstra employee Christopher Frankie, Dykstra’s accomplishment of this feat came on the backs of the people the former outfielder — currently in prison on charges including grand theft auto and bankruptcy fraud — lied to, stole from and worse.

It’s an amazing fall from grace for this former New York hero who was once one of the city’s most popular athletes. Small and scrappy, Dykstra, who debuted on the Mets in 1985, got by on hustle, bravado and clutch performance, emerging from a platoon role in the outfield to hit three home runs in the 1986 postseason, helping drive the team to their first championship since 1969.

In addition to his fire on the field, Dykstra was a New York favorite for his unvarnished toughness and seeming relatability: referring to interviewers and fans alike as “dude” or “bro,” and even inspiring one female fan to wear a wedding dress to Shea Stadium on several occasions, proposing marriage to Dykstra — then known to Mets fans as “Nails” for his tough-as-nails approach to the game.

So when Dykstra said that his post-baseball career would be just as explosive as he was, fans had reason to believe, and at first it looked like Nails would be nailing it in the business world as well.

After baseball, Dykstra built three luxury car-wash businesses that he eventually sold for $55 million. He purchased Wayne Gretzky’s mansion for $18 million, flew around in a private jet and lived like a king until last decade’s stock-market crash annihilated much of his retirement savings.

He then spent a year learning everything he could about the stock market, and developed a seemingly effective method for picking stocks. He also befriended financial pundit Jim Cramer, who asked him to write a column for his website, TheStreet.com.

Frankie — who conducted extensive interviews and research for this book, in addition to his own recollections — was hired in December 2007 to edit Dykstra’s new financial newsletter, which he founded along with The Player’s Club, a magazine and service that helped professional athletes manage their money after retirement.

By March 2008, Dykstra was a “golden god” in the financial world thanks to his profitable stock picks, which caused Cramer to declare him “one of the great ones in this business.”

But Frankie got a different impression of the by-then mostly toothless (thanks to chewing tobacco) ex-athlete, who almost never slept, would summon Frankie to his hotel for work at all hours and rarely paid his employees despite his luxurious lifestyle.

Dykstra came to owe so much back pay that employees were afraid to quit for fear they would never see their money. At one point, Frankie had received just one check in three months, with Dykstra then owing him $34,000, a number that would grow substantially. Dykstra’s company was constantly broke, and when checks came in that were intended for payroll, he would immediately take the cash for his personal use.

Frankie explains that Dykstra’s genius at picking stocks may have been something of an illusion. Many at The Street were concerned with Dykstra’s methods, centered as they were around “deep-in-the-money calls,” which involved “throwing more money at losing positions.” While Dykstra would follow a collection of stocks with his readers and accumulated a seemingly impressive record of winners and losers — at one point holding 107 winning picks to just two losers — the structure was such that one loss could potentially wipe out the gain from all the winners.

But Dykstra — whose idea of fun was to “leave a large amount of feces in the toilet . . . so he could hear the shrieks of the hotel’s grossed-out maids” — heaped abuse on people far beyond the financial.

His treatment of women was abhorrent. During a meeting with the female managing director of a financial firm, he responded to her questions about the company’s preferred partners by telling her how he had “impregnated three women in the same night and made them all get abortions.”

His attitude toward non-whites was no better. Behind their backs, baseball legend Willie Mays, a Player’s Club partner, was referred to as Dykstra’s “field n – – – er”; Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods were “darkies”; and when he instructed Frankie to write an article about the “baboons,” he meant tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.

When Dykstra’s company was evicted from its offices due to non-payment of rent, and Dykstra tried pressuring Frankie and another employee to “use their personal credit ratings to secure loans and credit cards for the Players Club and [his company] Nails Investments,” which they wisely refused.

Not so wise was a woman named Dorothy, Dykstra’s longtime assistant and perpetual defender. After quitting at one point, she wrote Frankie an e-mail saying that “without a miracle she would go under in a big way.”

“Everything good I have tried to do for my family will stop,” she wrote to Frankie in an e-mail, “because I loaned Lenny my safety net and charged up my credit cards for him . . . so I have no fallback and I am out of time.”

“There was no question that there was a method to Dykstra’s madness,” writes Frankie. “He would hire someone, ride him or her as far and as long as possible and then discard that individual, paying little or none of what he had promised. Like a parasite, he would latch onto a host, suck it dry and then move on to the next victim.”

This extended to Dykstra’s family. According to his brother Kevin, Dykstra asked their mother to put $23,000 on her credit card for a private-jet flight, and he never repaid the money. And when his son, Cutter, received a signing bonus from the Milwaukee Brewers, Dykstra schemed in several ways — including trying to pressure an employee to “bribe a notary to falsify documents giving him access to Cutter’s cash” — to take it for himself. (Dykstra’s ex-wife and several former Dykstra employees and business associates confirmed to Frankie that Dykstra eventually took six figures worth of Cutter’s money, while Cutter has denied it.)

Behind on payments for a $400,000 Maybach, Dykstra instructed his driver to hide the car, then pressured him to find a way to secure Dykstra a new Rolls-Royce. Dykstra then told him to sell the Maybach on the black market, giving him “the number of someone in the Russian mafia.”

Dykstra’s behavior got progressively worse. An assistant he stole thousands of dollars from filed a police report, and she later reported being “harassed and threatened” by “at least five different people, including his drug dealer and a ‘fake private investigator.’ They accused her of stealing from Dykstra and threatened to ‘come into my house and get me.’ ”

Toward the end, ESPN revealed that “Dykstra had been sued 24 times in the previous two years and a whopping 18 times in the previous six months.”

Claiming $31 million in debts against assets of less than $50,000, Dykstra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He also sought $10 million from his insurance company for supposed water damage to his mansion, but it was soon reported that Dykstra had vandalized his own house. By the end of 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dykstra’s mansion was “unshowable,” as it was “littered throughout with empty beer bottles, trash and dog feces and urine among other unmentionables.” Dykstra was removed from the home and “barred from the exclusive gated community.”

By early 2010, Dykstra told a reporter that “he was homeless,” that his life was a “nightmare” and that “he often wondered where his next meal would come from.” He claimed to be “living in his car and even on the streets,” and while he showed up for newspaper interviews in a “rumpled” suit, he still somehow employed a secretary.

Amazingly, in the wake of all this, Dykstra’s most despicable behavior was yet to come.

He began placing ads on Craigslist, using fake names such as Mr. Kyle (his middle name), for personal assistants. Another assistant would inform interviewees that Mr. Kyle “didn’t like to drink alone,” and that he was an ex-athlete with bothersome injuries, so they should “bring massage oil and offer him a massage.”

Dykstra would then cajole the applicants into giving him massages while he was nude, or just brazenly ask for oral sex.

Then, at a certain point, he allegedly stopped asking. He gave applicants tours of his apartment that always ended in his bedroom, and when one executive assistant applicant “emerged from his bedroom, yelling that Dykstra was a sick bastard,” Dykstra turned to his maid, who was standing nearby, and allegedly demanded she “finish him off.”

Dykstra then removed his pants and demanded oral sex, according to the book.

“He grabbed me by my neck and pulled me down,” the woman told Frankie. “I told him ‘No, no,’ and I started crying. He pushed my head down, and he kept telling me that I’m going to see God.” While she fled right after, she returned the following week to try to get back pay that Dykstra owed her, and to possibly collect evidence. Because she returned, prosecutors refused to press charges.

Dykstra’s reign of terror finally ended when he was busted for buying cars using forged financial documents. He was sentenced to three years in prison, although his sentence has since been extended due to additional charges.

LAPD Detective Juan Contreras, who arrested Dykstra, “had been a street cop during the LA riots and had encountered many members of notorious gangs,” yet said that Dykstra was “a total sociopath” who was “among the top three most egregious criminals he’s come across in his 24 years on the force.

“I’ve met a lot of gang members,” Contreras said, “that have more ethics than this guy.”